The Pleistocene of North America / and its vertebrated animals from the states east of the Mississippi River and from the Canadian provinces east of longitude 95°

by Oliver Perry Hay

Webster is situated south of the Bloomington moraine, in a tract of country indicated by Leverett as covered by undulating drift, in part morainic.

The greater part of this political township, made up apparently of parts of townships numbered 13 north and ranges 8 and 9 west, is occupied by outwash deposits laid down by the Wabash River and brought from further north during the Wisconsin stage; but at present, at least, it is impossible to assign the animal to any particular division of that stage.

In Area North of Bloomington Moraine and South of the Mississinawa Moraine and the Wabash River.

4. Windsor, Randolph County.—In the collection at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, is a part of a tooth referred to this species. It is either the last milk molar or the first true molar of the right side of the lower jaw. There are present eleven plates and one or more is missing from the rear. The length along the base is 100 mm., the width is 55 mm. There are six plates in a line 50 mm. long. This tooth was found August 20, 1893, in the bed of Stony Creek, near Windsor. According to Leverett’s glacial map of Indiana, this is just south of the Union City moraine near its junction with the Bloomington moraine. By what is known of the habits of this species it may have lived even when the glacial sheet was forming the Union City moraine.

5. Winchester, Randolph County.—In the collection of Earlham College is a lower molar of the right side, apparently the first, labeled as found at Winchester. No details are furnished. Winchester lies on the border of the Union City moraine and all the country about is occupied by Wisconsin drift. It is quite certain, therefore, that this mammoth lived at some time between the formation of the moraine mentioned and the end of the Pleistocene epoch.

6. Fairmount, Grant County.—Here was found, in 1904, the nearly complete skeleton of the mammoth mounted in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It has been described and figured by the writer (36th Ann. Rep. Geol. Surv. Indiana, p. 718, figs. 63, 64; Iowa Geol. Surv., vol. XXIII, p. 396, fig. 133). It was found on the farm of Mrs. Dora C. Gift, about 4 miles east of Fairmount. The location is in the southeast quarter of section 23, township 23 north, range 8 east. This information has been furnished by Mr. George Swisher, surveyor of Grant County.

This whole region is mapped by Leverett as being occupied by ground moraine of till plains, and the animal must have lived after the Wisconsin ice cleared away. A tract more or less morainic, an extension of the Union City moraine, is indicated by Leverett on his latest map as passing further south than Fairmount. At the earliest it must have been after the withdrawal of the ice from the Union City moraine that the animal lived. Considering the character of the surrounding country, the nature of the deposit inclosing the skeleton, and the depth at which it was buried, it might be supposed that it was not long after the formation of the Union City moraine that this elephant existed.

9. North Liberty, St. Joseph County.—From Professor A. M. Kirsch, of Notre Dame University, the writer received a photograph of an upper molar of Elephas primigenius found at New Liberty about 1905. This tooth is worn to the base in front and to the fourth plate from the rear. Evidently several plates are gone from the front. Apparently 18 remain. The extreme length is 215 mm. The edges of the plates, as seen on the side of the tooth present a sigmoid curve. The enamel was evidently thin.

In Area North of Kankakee River.

8. Crown Point, Lake County.—Mr. G. W. Stose, of the U. S. Geological Survey, informed the writer that about 1888 he helped in exhuming some bones of an elephant near Crown Point, discovered in the construction of a large ditch in township 34 north, range 8 west. The bones lay in a swamp clay at a depth of 8 to 10 feet. A part of a tusk, one tooth, and one large bone were put in Guenther’s Museum, Chicago. Another tooth (M³) owned by Mr. Stose (No. 8067) was presented to the U. S. National Museum in 1914. It is worn to the base in front; 22 plates remain. The length of the tooth is 285 mm., and the width 100 mm. There are 8 plates in a 100 mm. line. The enamel is thin and little folded.